This Most Absurd Predicament
by MarieKavanagh
Summary: In which a father and son find themselves in a quite frankly ridiculous situation.
1. Chapter 1

The first thing that Orion Black noticed about the room he tumbled into as his son pulled him by the cloak through the heavy metal door was that it was cold. Bitingly cold, in fact. The sudden drop in temperature from the moderately-chilly December air outside the room to the certainly below-freezing temperature inside washed over him as though he'd plunged full-on into an icy river.

Before either father or son had a moment to get their bearings, an ominous creaking noise echoed through the room from behind them.

A loud, heavy crash rang out behind them and both men whirled round just in time to see the metal doors slam shut behind them, followed by an automated locking system clicking shut, leaving them cut off from the warehouse corridor outside.

"Bloody brilliant" Sirius muttered through panted breaths, worn out from the chase through the winding corridors of the building as they'd attempted outrun the pack of unidentified, masked Death Eaters following them. "Bloody Muggles. Why would a door need to be self-locking? What if I'd wanted it unlocked?"

"What in _Salazar's_ name is this place and why have you dragged me in here, of all places?" Orion demanded to know through his own efforts to catch his breath. He gazed around the room curiously, taking in the metal stacking shelves and whirling sound of fans.

"It's a cold storage room" answered Sirius. He spoke snappishly, as though his father were slow for not automatically recognising a place that rang so peculiar to the magical mind.

Orion sniffed and grimaced at the odour that reached him. A mix of food smells - raw meats and other animal-derived perishables.

"I see" he said plainly, wrinkling his nose at the smell.

Clearly this was a room for storing foods. Fair play to the Muggles - without the ability to simply wave a wand to keep a plate of food fresh, they had somehow managed to invent a system capable of containing temperatures within a room that must surely be below freezing, judging by the way the icy air chilled Orion's exposed hands and face.

"And what, pray tell, made you assume that this arctic interior would make a suitable hiding place?"

Sirius's brow furrowed at his father's tone. Despite not having laid eyes on his son for almost two years before this day, Orion recognised that glower in an instant. It was the same look his son had given him almost every other day, many years ago, for offences ranging from the denial of any more sweets to the insistence that he put his toys away before bedtime.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realise we had quite so many options available to us" Sirius shot at his father, his voice practically dripping with sarcasm. "Shall we pop outside and see if any more comfortable hiding spots are available for use? I'm sure the Death Eaters won't deny us a few minutes to look around"

"Hold your tongue, boy"

Orion's voice was low with threat. He burned indignantly. He'd troubled himself to come all this way, out into a Muggle warehouse in the middle on nowhere on a tip-off from his younger son that his estranged elder child was in danger.

Regulus had seemed unusually troubled as he'd entered his father's study earlier that day. He'd stammered his words out as he explained the plot he'd overheard whilst amongst most unsuitable company (Orion had assured his younger son he would deal with this particular matter at a more convenient time), that there was a plot to lure Sirius, his older brother, into a trap, that very evening.

The promise of a hostage exchanged for vital information on Dumbledore's next planned moves, (a missing witch whom had long been suspected of being held by the Dark Lord's followers) would be used to lure him to the agreed meeting place, a barely-inhabited Muggle warehouse, where he would be ambushed by Death Eater with the intention of either bringing him to the Dark Lord, or kill him in the process of trying.

Orion had acted immediately. His estranged eldest son may believe he was above his duty to his family, but Orion, most certainly, was not.

Alas, if it hadn't been for his son's foolhardiness and lack of emotional control, all could have gone smoothly during Orion's rescue plan.

But now here they were, trapped in a below-freezing storeroom full of carcasses hanging on hooks after an almost comical chase through the hallways in which both Orion and Sirius had had their wands blasted from their hands, lost to them.

"If you had simply followed my orders and had come to me when I told you to, we could have Apparated out of here in an instant" Orion snapped at his son, pulling the heavy, fur-lined material of his winter cloak around his shoulders in an effort to shield himself from the cold.

It was working. Almost two-decades into his ownership of this most well-made of winter cloaks and it had yet to leave him shivering. And after all, why replace something that isn't broken?

"Excuse me for being just a _little_ distracted by your presence" Sirius snapped back at his father, his family-famous scowl still firmly plastered across his otherwise admirable features. "It's not every day one's arrogant snake of a father slithers his way back into your business uninvited"

Orion felt his anger flare at his son's words.

"Your _business_, you might recall, led you into a trap that would have seen you either dead or a hostage of the Dark Lord" he seethed, refusing to entertain his son's attempt to lure him into a shouting match.

Shouting, Orion had long since learned, did nothing to increase one's likelihood to win an argument. So what was the point in wasting one's breath with it?

"I might have expected perhaps just a tad more gratitude for saving you from that band of fanatics, but it seems my time away from you has dimmed my memory of your lack of gratitude towards anything I have ever done for you"

"_Gratitude_?" Sirius barked with a laugh, throwing his head back dramatically. "You actually expect me to be _grateful_ for getting me into this mess? I was doing fine until you showed up and threw me off!"

"That is nothing but a blatant lie, and you know it" Orion replied, fixing his son with a hard, stern glare from across the room, the sort that was once reserved for the more severe telling-offs of his childhood, following misdemeanours so serious as to warrant the boy being sent to his father's study to be dealt with.

"If I hadn't have been here today, you would be dead. That is the truth. You are too stupidly reckless to handle such situations and quite frankly I am amazed that wily old half-blood Dumbledore allowed you to follow this obvious scent of a trap"

Orion observed his son in the aftermath of his comment.

Sirius's scowl had lessened just a little and his head dropped to allow his hair, longer and more tangled than Orion had ever seen it, to fall in an inky black curtain over his face, as if to hide behind it.

A stark realisation suddenly washed over him.

"Dumbledore doesn't know about any of this, does he?" Orion asked, scarcely able to keep his own bemusement out of his tone.

Sirius's silence and nervous shifting of his weight from one foot to the other told Orion all he needed to know.

"I should have know" said Orion with a small chuckle, shaking his head as he paced across the room as if to examine the hanging carcasses like exhibits in an art museum. "I should have known from the moment I heard of this entire ridiculous scenario that you'd have gone loping into such an obvious trap like an over-excited mongrel chasing after the first whiff of a treat"

"Shut up" Sirius snapped, shooting a furious, yet clearly somewhat embarrassed, look across the room at his father. He kicked out at one of the metal stacking shelves, sending a clanging of metal ringing through the room.

"Oh this is just like you" Orion continued with a hopeless shake of his head and a bemused chuckle. "All action, brave, yes perhaps, but no thought behind it. You hid this entire, ridiculous arrangement from your leader and now you've gotten yourself stuck here with no back up, and landed me in it as well to boot. No wonder that Hat didn't deem you worthy of Slytherin"

"Shut up!" Sirius shouted, his tempter flaring. "I'd rather be a Gryffindor than one of you _snakes_ any day. And anyway, people do know where I am. Friends of mine"

"Oh?" Orion raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "So you did have the sense to inform someone of your intentions this evening, after all?And they did nothing to stop you continuing with this ridiculous plan?"

"Not exactly" Sirius muttered. "I left a note. Before I left. They'll have found it by now. I said to come here if they hadn't heard from me by seven, which it's past now. They'll be on their way soon enough"

Orion couldn't help but shake his head again at his son's own personal dramatic brand of recklessness.

"Well I supposed its better than nothing. It would appear we have nothing else to do but wait"

Sirius wordlessly strode over to the wall of the freezing cold room, the furthest away from his father he could get. He slouched forward, hugging his arms tight around his middle.

Orion observed his son somewhat curiously.

Sirius was visibly stiff in posture, despite his slouch, and the elder Black suddenly noticed that his son was shivering rather intensely. Had he been doing that this whole time? Had Orion been too swept away into his old, long-ago-forged habit of chastising his son to notice how cold he was?

Orion now took the time to examine his son's clothes properly.

He was dressed disgracefully, in a thin, Muggle-style shirt and blue trousers in an odd material he had once heard his son refer to as "denim jeans", in that superior, know-it-all tone he had developed sometime around age fourteen. Neither garment looked particularly insulating, and Orion now realised that, most crucially, his son's attire was not completed with a cloak of any sort, nor it's Muggle counterpart.

The foolish whelp.

Orion was suddenly more aware of how little he felt the effects of the harsh cold of the room that was, for the moment at least, their prison. His faithful winter cloak, a loyal servant of almost twenty years, had not only kept the chill out, but had kept his own body heat in, only aided by his heavy, layered winter robes. By all accounts, he was rather comfortable, even in the undoubtedly below-freezing temperature of the cold storage room.

And there was his son, hunched against the wall, stiff with cold and now obviously shivering. In the extreme cold of the room, his ridiculously ill-planned clothing would only worsen his already uncomfortable state.

Orion sighed. His son was a foolish whelp, an idiotic, reckless boy. A traitor to the name of the family he had been blessed enough to be born into.

But still, his son.

"Come here"

Sirius's head tilted upwards, his tired, grey eyes peering out from behind his black curtail of hair.

"What?"

"I said, come here"

Orion repeated his words firmly, his tone level, expectant.

"Why?"

"Your place is not to question me, simply to do as I say"

"Oh give it a _rest_, will you" Sirius hunched over further, his knuckles turning white with effort as they gripped his elbows in an attempt to hug what little body warmth he still possessed tight inside his body.

Orion gritted his teeth determinedly.

"Why must you always be so wilfully disobedient?" he sighed in annoyance.

"Because despite what you seem to think, I'm not actually a mongrel, you know. I don't just come when called on demand"

"You do when the person calling you happens to be your father" Orion replied, in a voice as icy as the air around them. "Now do as I say, and _come here_"

Those words, spoken with such authoritarian demanding, seemed to do the trick. Perhaps it was the memory of the after-effects of disobeying that tone, or perhaps the cold had eroded the last of his son's will to defy him, but for whichever reason, Sirius slowly dropped his clasped arms to his side and walked (or skulked, rather) across the white, tiled floor to fill the spot his father pointed to, directly in front of him.

Orion's eyes, identical in their shade of grey to his son's, observed Sirius for a moment as he stood before him, gaze cast down to the floor sullenly. He was stiff in his posture and gait, as though desperately trying to suppress the urge to shiver. His face, from what Orion could see of him from behind his untamed black mane, was pale and somewhat draw, with tired, dark circles under his eyes.

He looked worn out. He looked far more weary and troubled than any youth barely into his nineteenth year had any right to be.

Orion wondered, briefly, what work that old fool Dumbledore had his young recruits doing that denied them a decent night's rest and recuperation.

But then, he reconsidered to himself, knowing Sirius, he was unlikely to waste his free time on such sensible pursuits anyway.

Silly, reckless boy, Orion thought to himself. He was a law unto himself, a danger to his own health and well-being.

His son was still shivering.

In a movement that felt almost as stiff as Sirius looked, Orion reached out an arm, draped in the heavy material of his cloak, and draped it across his son's shoulders.

Sirius flinched slightly at the touch, so unfamiliar and unexpected from a man who considered anything more than a brisk handshake to be inappropriate contact, but he did not resist as he was drawn, gently but firmly, to stand closer to his father, pressed right up against him.

Orion wrapped his other arm around Sirius's shoulders, securing his son inside the warm, protective embrace of his heavy cloak. Though Sirius had clearly grown since Orion had last laid eyes on him at sixteen, he was yet to match his father in height by several inches, meaning that he fit rather snugly inside his father's most unexpected, but undeniably warm, embrace.

A heavy silence hung between them both as they stood awkwardly pressed together, broken only by the whirling of the motors that kept up the room's bitingly frigid temperature.

Orion could feel Sirius standing stiff as a board against him. Perhaps it was simply from the uncontrollable shivering of his body as it attempted to fight off the onslaught of hypothermia, perhaps it was fear that this was somehow a part of yet another trap that he had "loped" right into on a whim.

Or, more likely, it was a combination of both.

"Why on_ Earth_ didn't you think to wear a cloak?" Orion asked with a sigh, less out of malice and more simply to break the icy silence between himself and his son. "It's the middle of December"

Orion felt Sirius shift away from him slightly - still enveloped within his grasp, but as far away as his father's arms would allow him.

"Not that I expect you to have much of a grasp of Muggle fashion but I'd have thought even _you_ could tell that a whacking great cloak wouldn't exactly match these clothes"

Sirius's tone was far too spiteful for one currently in receipt of such vital warmth donation.

"Even under the threat of hypothermia you see fit to make smart remarks, I see" said Orion, bemused. "If you'd only recover the brain I know for a fact you posses somewhere, you'd see that robes are a far more practical option for such a climate than those thin strips of nothing"

"_For such a climate_?!" Sirius snapped, jerking his head up to glare at his father. "I didn't exactly _plan_ to get stuck in a fridge with you!"

He attempted to tug himself free from Orion's grip, but the elder Black's hold on his errant son remained firm.

Orion tugged Sirius back, hard, pulling him tighter against his chest than he had before.

Sirius stumbled as he was made to lean back against his father's body, but surprisingly, did not resist.

"I meant for an English winter, you little fool" Orion quipped. "Believe me, this most absurd predicament no more featured in my plans for the day than it did yours"

Shockingly, Sirius did not see fit to offer a retort, his jaw remaining clenched shut in an obvious effort to stop his teeth from chattering.

Orion, however, found his desire to feel triumphant at this rare outright winning of an argument against his elder son overruled by concern regarding his sudden realisation that Sirius's legs, pressed against his side, were trembling.

In spite of the warmth provided by his father, the boy was still shivering in the extreme cold, his legs shaking to a degree that Orion feared he might topple over at any moment.

"Sit down" Orion found himself saying.

"What?" Sirius asked, a crude replacement for the more polite "pardon" he had been raised to offer in such circumstances.

"Sit down" Orion repeated, more firmly this time.

"No thanks"

"It was not a suggestion"

"I'm sure. My answer, however, remains unchanged"

"For heaven's sake, will you just do as you are told for once in your life and sit down before you collapse"

Fed up with waiting for Sirius to obey willingly, and leaving him with no time to spit out any further argument, Orion grasped his son by the arms and pulled him downwards, until the pair of them were both sitting on the (thankfully clean, Orion remarked to himself) tiled floor.

Orion kept Sirius clasped tight to him as he leaned back against the wall, finding, again, surprisingly little resistance from his son.

His body still shrouded snugly within the warmth of his father's cloak, Sirius wriggled himself into a more comfortable position from the one he had landed in - his weak legs had all but collapsed under him at his father's handling and he's landed in a tangled mess.

Orion observed silently as Sirius settled himself into as tightly a curled-up position as he could manage, tucking he entire body under the generous material of his fur-trimmed cloak.

In spite of his son's feeble protests, Orion could not deny that the arrangement was working. He could feel Sirius's shivering beginning to subside as their shared body warmth under the heavy cloak began to ease his descent into a dangerously cold state.

It would hardly do to go to such effort to recover the boy from danger only to lose him to hypothermia, brought on by his own foolish actions, would it?

Orion could feel an ever-so-slight pressure against his chest, only for few fleeting moments before it was quickly removed, before the gentle pressure was applied once again.

He glanced down to see Sirius's head drifting to a tilt to wearily lean against his father's chest. His cheek seemed to linger against Orion before he seemed to catch himself and pull away again. Fatigue was attempting to claim him, and he was stubbornly denying himself the most comfortable position available to him.

Orion sighed. The boy truly was a glutton for martyrdom.

He raised a hand up from inside the depths of the cloak and pressed it to the side of his son's head, guiding him to lean against his chest.

Sirius did not resist. He silently submitted to the touch and at last allowed himself to rest his head against his father's chest, too worn out to fight the urge any longer.

Orion suddenly noticed that Sirius's whole form had relaxed a bit further into his hold. He no longer felt stiff and his shivering had lessened to just a slight tremble. A vast improvement on the previous stare of affairs.

"I don't believe I can recall the last time you submitted to being held" Orion couldn't help but remark with a bemused smile as he observed his son resting against him.

He'd expected a sarcastic comment, flared with annoyance, the sort of hot emotion that would keep his foolish boy safely awake.

The response he got, however was surprisingly meek.

"I don't believe I can recall the last time you saw fit to offer such a gesture"

Sirius's remark struck Orion harder than he could ever have expected. And what was even less expected was the response he was instinctively urged to respond with.

He hugged his son tighter to him.

Sirius, as though in response to the tightening of the arms around him, nuzzled his father's chest sleepily.

Orion was taken aback. This most intimate of gestures felt unfamiliar. Inappropriately unfamiliar. He looked down at his son curled up against his chest. He seemed relaxed. One would almost go so far as to say... at peace.

Orion found himself in the grip of a sudden surge of protective instinct over his son, whom he had allowed to stray from his protective grasp for far too long. A mistake he was determined not allow to be repeated now that he had hold of him again.

All too soon, the moment was broken as Sirius suddenly regained the energy to return to his usual, humorous tone.

"Y'know, Dad, if we actually get out of here alive maybe we should make this more of a regular thing, eh?"

His voice was cheeky, even when weakened with cold and fatigue. Orion looked down to see Sirius smirking, even with his eyes drifted closed.

"If you speak to women half as cockily as you speak to your father, its no wonder you've yet to dirty the family line with any ill-begotten half-blood offspring" Orion chided in retort.

Sirius lets out a tired laugh as he mumbled a response into his father's chest.

"Now that's just rude"

"You started it"

Sirius sighed sleepily and nuzzled Orion's chest again.

For a moment, Orion considered jostling him awake from the slumber that seemed about to overcome the boy, aware of the dangers associated with hypothermia and sleep. But his actions were halted when he became aware that Sirius had now completely stopped shivering.

He moved a hand under the cloak to press against Sirius's side. The boy felt dramatically warmer than before, in fact he was practically toasty under the cloak.

It seems his strategy has worked. Perhaps the boy could be allowed to sleep a little. After all, he had looked so tired, even before the cold had set in.

For the sake of wanting to get his Sirius out of this accursed freezer and into a more suitable place to sleep, Orion rather hoped that Dumbledore's gaggle of young upstarts would find them soon.

But perhaps, he thought to himself as he lowered his head to rest the side of his face atop his dozing son's head, not too soon, either.


	2. Chapter 2

Orion stumbled slightly as he arrived on the street outside Number Twelve, Grimmauld place by Apparation. He forced himself to stand firm on the pavement, his balance compromised by the weight of his unconscious eldest son in his arms.

Help had taken what felt like an age to arrive. Three hours locked inside an absurd Muggle contraption (a "freezer room", Sirius had called it) had felt more like three years to the father desperately attempting to keep his son from freezing to death by the only means possible - his heavy, fur-lined cloak and shared body warmth. But these methods could only go so far, and after such prolonged exposure to the sub-zero temperatures of the room, Sirius had made the potentially fatal mistake of succumbing to sleep, thankfully not long before help finally arrived in the form of a member of the gang of young wizards Dumbledore had jumbled together to form what he called the Order of the Phoenix.

In any other circumstances, Orion would have sniffed haughtily at the sight of the wizard - a rather tired-looking young man about the same age as his son, his robes looking very worn and sporting a more than a few patches and obvious repairs. This was clearly not a man of which Orion could possibly have any reasonable business with. On any other day, that is. On this particular day, the shabby young wizard happened to have hold of Orion's wand, as well as his son's - they must have been retrieved somewhere along the corridors of the Muggle warehouse which housed the freezer room, and in which they had fled from an oncoming charge of Death Eaters earlier that day.

"And about time too" Orion snapped impatiently as the wizard stood in the doorway of the freezer room, visibly stunned at the sight before him. In fairness, it wasn't every day you found a wizard and his son trapped inside such a ridiculous location.

With no time to waste, Orion carefully (and somewhat reluctantly) untangled Sirius's curled-up body from against his own and gently let him slide down to lay on the floor, detaching his cloak to drape over him. He sighed internally yet again at the state of the clothes his son had seen fit to wear in mid-winter - thin Muggle garments without any sort of cloak to speak of. No wonder he was near-frozen.

"Sirius?" the young wizard called, his tired-looking eyes darting between Sirius to Orion in puzzlement. "What-?"

"I don't have time for your petty questions now, boy" snapped Orion again as he marched over to the young wizard holding his wand. "My wand, if you please"

Visibly stunned by the situation he had stumbled upon, the wizard held out Orion's wand to him, which he was swiftly relieved of.

"I will take my son's wand as well" Orion outstretched his hand expectantly once again.

"Your- your son?"

The young man's eyes widened in what seemed to be a bout of sudden realisation.

"Yes" Orion snapped. "Now hurry up, boy, I don't have all day"

Orion was running out of patience. He didn't have the luxury of time to dally about here making small talk to someone who wasn't worth explaining himself to.

The wizard silently offered Sirius's wand out to him, and Orion swiftly took it and pocketed it.

With a swish of his robes, he turned and headed quickly back to his son, kneeling down onto the tiled floor to lift the sleeping Sirius up to lean against him once more.

With strength he scarcely realised he still possessed, Orion lifted his son's limp, cold body into his arms and got to his feet before drawing his wand and Apparating them both out of this most accursed room, catching the eye of the stunned-looking young wizard who had found them.

He had looked utterly baffled, and perhaps a tad put out at the lack of thanks he had received for saving them both.

And now here he stood, mere seconds later, on the pavement directly below where the front door of his house would appear at his command. The night air was cold, although certainly still a good deal warmer than the freezer room, the surrounding street deserted, as it always was at this time of the evening. The surrounding Muggles did not keep unsociable hours.

Muttering the incantation to reveal Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, Orion willed the bricks to move faster as his home unveiled itself to its master. At long last, the front steps appeared, and Orion quickly climbed them, casting a wandless unlocking spell on the front door which swung open for him.

The house was unusually well-lit for the time of day. At this time, the ground floor of the house was usually deserted; the candles extinguished, the rooms silent except for the occasional scuffling of the house elf creeping about on his nightly cleaning rounds.

Tonight, however, the candles remained a-glow and the scuffling of bare elf feet was replaced by the constant, formidable clip-clop of what Orion instantly recognised as the sound of his wife's shoes as she paced up and down the length of the drawing room, impatiently awaiting his return.

Sure enough, as Orion hurried into the drawing room with Sirius still in his arms, he was met by the sight of his wife stopping, mid-pace, by the fireside; her face frantic with worry, strands of her black hair beginning to fall from it's usually immaculate styling.

Walburga's grey eyes widened further still as her face drained of colour at the sight of her husband carrying their son - the son who had stolen away from this house in the dead of night over two years ago, supposedly never to be seen again. The son who now hung limp and lifeless in his father's arms.

"Orion? What's wrong with him? Tell me!" Walburga demanded, marching over to meet her husband as he hurried in, carrying Sirius over to the sofa in the middle of the room.

Orion was silent, intent on his task. Explanations could wait. For now he needed to focus on getting the boy warmed up, and fast.

He brushed past his wife, ignoring her demands.

"Orion, tell me! What ha-"

Walburga paused mid-sentence as her hand brushed against Sirius's, arm, which hung down gracelessly from under the cloak he was wrapped in, which she now saw was Orion's own cloak.

She gasped and recoiled in shock, grasping the hand that had made contact with her son's icy skin, clutching it tight as though she'd been burned.

"Why is he so cold?" she asked, her voice a shaking whisper.

Her husband's silence as he pushed past her did nothing but ignite her panic further.

"Orion, why is he so cold? What's happened? Tell me!"

"Be quiet, woman!" Orion finally snapped as he bent down to lay Sirius on the sofa. "I will tell you in a moment"

Walburga halted in the middle of her demand, yet again, to know why her son was so cold and lifeless. Her heart pounded so hard in her chest that she felt it might burst free from within her. She tensed every muscle in her body to try and stop herself from shaking.

With Sirius finally settled on the sofa, still wrapped in his father's cloak, Orion drew his wand and silently ordered the sofa to move across the room and over to the fireside, levitating strategically so as not to scrape against the expensive hearth rug. He set the sofa as close to the fire as he could reasonably place it, placing his hand in front of Sirius to ensure he was meeting the full force of the warmth from the flames

His task complete, he then turned to his wife, still stunned into rare silence.

Walburga stood to one side of the sofa, still clutching the hand that had felt her son's coldness as though nursing a wound, her wide eyes starting, fixated on Sirius. Looking closer, Orion could see she was trembling. He felt a small stab of guilt at being so short with her.

She worried, of course she did. Any mother would.

He crossed the room to join his wife and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder, squeezing it gently, willing her to stop shaking.

"There was - an altercation" he began, unsure of how best to explain the day's events.

"An altercation?" Walburga cut in, her impatience taking advantage of her husband's slow and uncertain words. "With who?"

"Followers of the Dark Lord"

Seeing the alarm in his wife's eyes threatening to flare up once more, Orion quickly continued.

"We managed to fend them off, for a time. But we found ourselves... compromised. That is- trapped, in a room"

"Trapped in a room?"

Walburga was clearly unsatisfied with this vague explanation as to how her estranged firstborn came to by laying on the drawing room sofa of the house he had abandoned, unconscious from cold, wrapped in the cloak she had pestered Orion to upgrade for the last half-decade.

"Yes" said Orion, attempting to find the words to describe the room. "It was a.. storage room of some sort. The Muggles have a way of keeping it cold, somehow. Don't ask me to explain-" he quipped, raising a hand to silence his wife as she opened her mouth, no doubt to dispute his absurd description of the room they had been trapped inside. "-because I can't. But it was freezing cold. Far too cold. And of course, the foolish whelp had thought to dress as though it were the middle of summer, rather than December"

Orion sighed and rubbed his forehead, fighting back the fatigue threatening to take hold now that the adrenaline rush of the day's events had subsided.

"I managed to keep him warm enough for a time, but it was too damned cold. We were found just in time"

"Found?" Walburga asked, her voice quiet. "By whom?"

Orion waved a hand aimlessly.

"A friend of his, I suppose. One of that gang of friends of his, I assume. It doesn't matter. But thank Merlin we got out of there when we did..."

Orion let out another weary sigh which seemed to activate some sort of instinct within his wife. Her husband had delivered their firstborn back to her, albeit in a less than ideal state, and now there was work to be done.

Walburga shook off the shock of the situation she had found herself in and regained her nerve. She marched over to where Sirius lay on the sofa by the fire, wrapped in Orion's cloak, asleep. It was a well-made and warm cloak, make no mistake, but it was not enough.

"This isn't enough" she said, her voice grim with determination. She pulled her wand from within the hidden pocket within the folds of her gown skirt and gave it a silent wave, tapping the coffee table beside her.

A large pile of thick blankets appeared, neatly folded, summoned from the airing cupboard where the house elf had stored them away.

As he watched his wife begin to unfold the first blanket and throw it over their son's sleeping form, Orion stepped closer to her, until he was stood beside her.

Walburga watched him from the side of her field of vision as she busied herself with her task.

Orion silently leaned down to grasp his wife's shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

Walburga froze, having been about to lean around to grab the next blanket from the pile.

The couple remained, silent, each of their gazes fixated on Sirius. The silence between them was only broken by the crackling of the firewood in the hearth.

"I must speak with Regulus" said Orion, quietly. "Is he still up?"

"I'd assume so" Walburga replied, her voice equally muted. "I doubt he'd be able to sleep after all this"

"Right" said Orion, reluctantly straightening himself up and pulling away from his wife. "I will leave Sirius to you, then"

And with that, he left the room, stealing a quick glance from the doorway back at the sight of his wife tending to the firstborn they both thought was lost to them forever.

Walburga took a deep, shuddering breath as she finished tucking a second blanket around Sirius.

Now that the shock of the situation had subsided, she was left with an empty void waiting to be filled, but with what, she just couldn't decide.

In the time since Sirius had slipped away from them in the dead of night, all thought of him had invoked feelings of anger and frustration so fiery that she tried to shut him out of her mind completely as much as she could. And at the same time, she could never quell the longing, deep down, for his return.

And now, here he was. Delivered back into her possession as easily as a parcel arriving by owl mail. And she couldn't for the life of her decide whether to be angry or overjoyed.

So instead, she chose not to feel at all, simply to focus on the task at hand. Her son was freezing cold, he needed warming up quickly.

"Kreacher!"

At her sharp command, the bat-eared house elf appeared at her side with a loud CRACK.

The loincloth-clad creature peered, wide-eyed in surprise before his gaze narrowed in a sneer at Sirius.

"Kreacher" Walburga repeated, sharply, drawing the elf's attention back at his mistress, where it belonged. "I want you to prepare some soup, now"

The elf looked as though he were bursting to enquire about what the disgraced blood traitor son of the house was doing asleep on the drawing room sofa, but alas, he would find the task of preparing the soup far harder with rapped knuckles.

"What sort, Mistress?" he asked instead, with a slight bow.

"Chicken" said Walburga. "And be sure it's good and thick"

Kreacher bowed lowly and took his leave, disappearing again with another sharp CRACK.

At the sound, Sirius flinched in his sleep and let out a slight moan.

Walburga started at the movement. He was stirring already. Thank goodness. The slumber of hypothermia was loosening it's grip on him.

And yet... She wasn't sure she wanted him to wake. Not just yet. He would likely fly into a fit of rage the second he realised where he was. And Walburga hadn't seen her son in so long... She wanted a few moments, at least, simply to take in the sight of him.

She found herself reaching out a hand to touch his face. His cool skin was definitely a tad warmer, though still too cold for her liking. With her other hand she raised her wand and tapped the pile of blankets she had tucked firmly around her son with a warming spell.

She allowed her fingers to linger on Sirius's cheek for several moments more. She could feel the slightest hint of stubble under her fingertips - not something she had felt on her son before. He looked remarkably similar to how he had when she had last seen him at sixteen, and yet he was different in so many ways.

There were dark circles under his eyes. He looked so tired, worn out, in a way that a youth of his age had no right to be. His hair was longer, a wild mane of tangled black hair just trying out to be tamed. She would see to that soon enough.

Walburga's hand stroked along his face and traced his jawline - his features had filled out slightly over the last two years. People had always remarked on how similar he looked to Orion, but now Sirius was indeed beginning to look less like the boy he had been and more like the man he was yet to become.

Two years of his life that he had cruelly snatched away from his mother.

Sirius gave another start and Walburga was jerked away from her thoughts at the sudden realisation that she was gripping her son's jaw rather tightly.

She quickly snatched her hand away from him and stood up from her kneeling position before Sirius could awaken and catch her in such a state. She conjured herself a chair beside the sofa - far more dignified.

She watched, still as stone, as Sirius began to stir awake with a moan.

Slowly, his eyes blinked open and he looked around him, clearly confused, before his gaze fell upon Walburga.

"Mum?"

The first thing Sirius was aware of was that he was cold. Uncomfortably cold, in spite of the warmth around him, as though he had just stepped inside from a raging snowstorm.

The second thing that Sirius was aware of was that he was trapped.

Sirius had always hated the feeling of bed covers tucked tightly around him. They left him feeling uncomfortably confined, akin to the feeling of being strapped down. And as he drifted out of the world of sleep, the realisation that he could scarcely move his arms and legs dragged him faster back to the world of the living than he would have liked.

There was a hand on his face, gripping his chin. He recognised that sensation. And there was only one person he associated that gesture with.

Dazed and confused, he forced his eyes open to survey the situation, blinking in the candlelit room.

As his eyes began to flicker open the hand withdrew, sharply.

His blurred vision slowly began to focus and the shapes within the room began to sharpen. His gaze darted about the room, from the ornate fireplace to the deep red velvet curtains, from the vast portraits within their golden frames to the sleek, black piano in the corner across the room.

He knew this place. He knew this place well. But he also knew that he shouldn't be here.

At last, Sirius's wandering eyes stumbled across Walburga, sat beside the sofa on which he lay, stiff as a board, her eyes drinking in the sight of him hungrily.

"Mum?" he mumbled, his voice croaky from fatigue.

His mother didn't seem to react at first. She stayed where she sat, still as a statue, her face a blank canvas, devoid of the fury that had filled it the last time Sirius had seen her.

"Hello, Sirius" she finally said a moment later. Again, her voice was unnaturally calm for the Walburga Black of Sirius's memory.

He couldn't stand this, laying here, practically swaddled in a mass of blankets. Despite the distinct chill urging him to shiver, he tried to fight his way free of the blankets and sit up.

Walburga leaned forward and pressed a hand firmly to Sirius's shoulder, stilling him.

"Be still" she said, calmly but firmly. "You need to rest"

"Why'm I here?" Sirius mumbled, his limited energy draining fast as he tried, and failed, again to sit up.

"I said, be still" Walburga repeated, more sternly this time. "You are in no fit state to move"

"M'fine" Sirius protested, jerking his shoulder free from her grasp. "Get off!" he shouted as Walburga tried to tuck back in the blankets that had been dislodged by his attempts to remove them.

"Sirius Orion Black, I have told you to stop moving" Walburga's voice was sharp and firm. "You are freezing cold and you are tired. You are in no fit state to go anywhere any time soon. Now, lie still"

At her firm command - a glimpse, finally, of the mother of his memory - Sirius reluctantly ceased his struggling. Though he would never admit it, he was indeed exhausted. His whole body ached from the cold which was finally beginning to melt away under the heat of the ridiculously warm blankets. She must have warmed them magically.

As the warmth of the bedding slowly sank beneath the surface of his skin, Sirius's fuzzy memory was beginning to clear and snapshots of the events that had led him to this most unlikely of situations flashed before him.

A warehouse. There were Death Eaters. He was in a freezer. He was cold. His father was there. His father. His father had... kept him warm, under his cloak... had held him.

"Where's Dad?"

Sirius could see his mother's jaw clench. She had never liked him using that vulgar title any more than she liked him calling her "Mum". Which was precisely why Sirius had developed the habit.

"Your father is- attending to a matter" said Walburga, plainly.

Regulus.

Sirius had long since worked out that it must have been Regulus who sent Orion to "save him". And now there was the unfinished business of his soft, obedient little brother secretly being a Death Eater to attend to. No wonder Orion was nowhere to be seen.

Sirius wasn't entirely sure if he even wanted to see his father. It was all very strange, what happened between them in the freezer. Sirius couldn't remember ever being held in such a way before by either of his parents. Hugged tightly, feeling warm and safe, loved, even...

"Kreacher!"

His mother's sharp call for the house elf snapped Sirius abruptly away from his thoughts.

Kreacher appeared at Walburga's side with a loud CRACK that made Sirius wince.

"Is the soup ready?" Walburga asked as the elf bowed in greeting, his eyes glimmering with dislike towards Sirius.

Sirius returned the favour with an equally dark glare.

"Yes, Mistress" Kreacher mumbled.

"Good" said Walburga, ignoring the obvious disdain between her son and servant. "Bring it"

With another bow, the elf was gone.

"I'm not hungry" Sirius muttered.

"Don't start this foolishness, now" Walburga replied firmly as she busied herself with smoothing her skirts.

"I said, I'm not hungry" Sirius shot back with a scowl.

"When was the last time you ate?"

Walburga raised her eyebrows questioningly.

Sirius was silent, he looked away, staring across the sofa at the cushion propped up at the far end.

"When did you last consume a proper meal, Sirius Orion?" Walburga asked again, in the tone that Sirius had learned years ago to recognise as one that demanded an answer. Ignorance would not be tolerated.

"Yesterday" Sirius muttered, unable to meet his mother's gaze.

"What time?"

"Just- lay off, alright?!" Sirius snapped back, attempting to shift himself inside the constraints of the blankets to turn away from her, and failing miserably.

"You haven't been eating properly at all, have you?" Walburga's tone was flat with obvious disapproval.

"Look, some of us are too busy doing important work to worry about other things, you know" said Sirius with a roll of his eyes. "We don't all spent our lives planning the next five-course meal. Haven't you heard there's a war on? Some of us have real work to do. Important work"

"Like walking straight into an obvious trap and having to be rescued by your father?"

His mother's remark left Sirius unable to respond. The blunt, embarrassing truth of the matter stung his pride. He tried again, in vain, to turn away from her.

"You need to eat properly, Sirius Orion. There is no more important job than taking proper care of yourself, not when you're-"

"When I'm what?" Sirius snapped, lifting his eyes to look his mother directly in the eyes at last.

Walburga stared back at her firstborn, stone-faced, her eyes cold and devoid of true feeling.

"-The what, Mother?" Sirius asked again with an accusing scowl. "The next heir? Future of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black?"

Walburga was silent. The air between mother and son hung heavy and tense.

There was no right answer to Sirius's questions. But he was right to ask them. Why had Orion brought him back here, rather than simply leave him with the friend who had found them? What did they want with him?

There had been no time for such discussions. And now, still, was not the time for them.

A familiar CRACK cut through the silence like jagged glass and Kreacher appeared, holding out a tray containing a bowl of steaming hot soup.

Walburga took it from him and nodded silently, dismissing him.

The elf disappeared once more, but not without stealing one quick, disapproving glance at Sirius.

"This is not the time" Walburga said quietly, stirring the soup in her lap. "You are still far too weak for such talk"

Sirius sighed, exasperated.

"For the love of Merlin, what part of 'I'm not hungry' was so hard to understand?" he snapped, scowling at the steaming bowl.

However, as the aroma of the rich chicken soup invaded his nostrils, it was impossible to prevent his stomach from growling with desire.

His mother was right. It had indeed been a long time since he'd taken the time to eat properly.

"I find that hard to believe" said Walburga. "You've had quite an ordeal. You need to eat something warm. You're still far too cold"

"Because shoving me ridiculously close to the fire in a sodding blanket prison isn't going to warm me up at all, is it?"

Walburga sighed at her son's sarcastic tone, stirring the soup.

"I see your time away has not quelled your cheek" she said.

"Not in the slightest" Sirius replied, raising his chin in proud defiance.

Walburga could not help but smirk.

Her son may be several years more grown than when she had last seen him, but he was no less the stubborn boy who didn't know what was best for him than he had ever been.

"Thankfully I'm quite used to dealing with your dramatics whilst under the weather"

She flashed him a knowing look.

Sirius could feel his cheeks flushing against his will. He was more than certain that the absurd heat of the blazing fire was not entirely the cause.

"Alright, fine. I'll eat" he muttered with a sigh, trying once again to free himself from the blankets.

Before he could even contemplate the idea of how he was going to haul himself up, Sirius found a spoonful of soup approaching his face. He contemplated turning away from the offer of food, but the distinct ache in his tired, cold body reminded him that even if he succeeded in liberating his arms from their blanket cocoon, he would scarcely have an ounce of strength left to actually feed himself.

Horrific images of spilling hot soup over himself filled his mind. He would never live it down.

And so, somewhat reluctantly, he allowed his mother to ease the spoonful of soup into his mouth without complaint.

Walburga had to admit, she hadn't expected her son to give in to the temptation of food quite so easily. But, nevertheless, as she ladled spoonful after spoonful of hot soup into him, the sight of his body visibly becoming more relaxed from the warmth eased her own hidden nerves.

As Sirius swallowed the last of the soup, Walburga set the empty bowl aside and reached out to press a hand to his cheek.

He felt remarkably warmer than he had done originally. Thank goodness.

She resisted the urge to let her hand linger on his face, forcing herself to pull back and clasp her hands primly in her lap.

"You ought to rest" she said, staring hard at Sirius as he failed to suppress a yawn.

She was probably right. The hot food and warmth of the blankets were finally having their full effect on Sirius. The cold ache was gone, leaving only glorious warmth in its wake.

He felt exhausted. Mentally and physically. And oh so confused.

"So, what now then?" he found himself asking.

"What do you mean?" Walburga replied, forcing herself to keep his gaze.

"Well- What now?" Sirius repeated, awkwardly. "A warm-up meal and a kip and then I'll be on my way?"

"This is not the-"

"Stop saying that!" Sirius snapped. "If now isn't the time to discuss why I've been brought back to this damned house when I haven't been a part of this family for a good two years, when is?"

Walburga gritted her teeth and breathed deep and slow, forcing herself to resist the temptation to rise to the bait of an argument.

"When you have adequately rested-"

She slowly rose to her feet, smoothing down her skirts. Sirius watched his mother like a hawk, his eyes going wide-eyed when she reached for the pocket in which her wand resided.

"-then your question will be answered"

Before Sirius could open his mouth to question her riddle of an answer, Walburga took a step closer to the sofa and raised her wand over him.

"What're you- Wait, no, don't!" Sirius protested as realisation as to what she was about to do washed over him.

But, trapped securely in a nest of blankets, there was nothing he could do to stop his mother as she cast a sleeping charm over him.

He caught a second's glimpse of her ever-revealing expression before the world around him faded to black.

When Sirius next awoke, the first thing he was aware of was that he was warm. Uncomfortably warm. The sound of crackling firewood told him before he'd even opened his eyes that the fireplace was set full ablaze and unlikely to be allowed to simmer down at his own command.

The second was that he was trapped. Still trapped.

He forced his weary eyes open sooner than they'd have liked to survey his surroundings.

The drawing room that had surrounded him was gone, replaced instead by what he quickly recognised as his old bedroom on the top floor of the house.

Everything about the room was exactly the same, entirely preserved in the state it had been in on the day he had fled through the window, right down to the gaudy posters of Muggle girls plastered to the walls, intentionally put there to invoke as much shock from his parents as possible.

In hindsight, they truly were a cringe-worthy, juvenile stunt. He didn't even like the girls. He made a mental note to take them down as soon as possible.

Except, just how soon that would be possible remained to be seen.

He was covered by as many layers of blankets as he had been on the drawing room sofa, each one of them tucked so firmly into the bed that they may as well have been straps holding him down.

A notable absence was his father's cloak, which had now been removed from him and was now hanging on the coat stand by the bedroom door. Sirius wondered when (or if?) Orion would pluck up the willpower to face him in order to collect the cloak. It appeared to feel rather at home on his own coat stand.

When Sirius finally managed to pull one of his arms free from under the covers, he noticed that he was clad in a finely-tailored set of flannel winter pyjamas that he distinctly recognised as one of the sets he had left behind in his bid for freedom.

Shock washed over him and he forced himself to sit up in bed, ignoring the faint bout of dizziness that washed over him as he did so.

Suddenly, his mother's last words to him filled his mind again.

"When you have adequately rested, then your questions will be answered"

Realisation dawned on Sirius. He gulped drily.

Walburga Black had indeed made the answer to his question quite clear.

She did not intend on allowing him to leave this house again any time soon.


End file.
